Bryn Mawr Classical Review 02.02.14

Recent work on the ancient novel has demonstrated that concerns of
contemporary literary studies can frame extremely fruitful readings of
ancient prose fiction (e.g. J.J. Winkler, Auctor & Actor: A
Narratological Reading of Apuleius's Golden Ass [Berkeley 1985], S.
Bartsch, Decoding the Ancient Novel: The Reader and the Role of
Description in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius [Princeton 1989], and a
number of studies presented at the 1989 Dartmouth International Conference
on the Ancient Novel). Similarly fruitful is S.'s Reading
Petronius, which applies principles of reader-response criticism to
the Satyricon, a
text that has elicited a wide range of responses from its readers over the
years. Throughout this study theoretical and thematic concerns are closely
connected: S. argues that acts of interpretation performed by characters
within the text can serve as a model for interpretive procedures which the
Satyricon apparently prompts its readers to undertake.

In
his introductory remarks (Ch. 1), S. outlines the assumptions and
procedures of reader-response criticism, in which interpretations are
based "on what happens within the reader during the reading process" (p.
3). The "reader" whose responses are scrutinized can be defined in a
number of ways; S.
chooses to draw upon Iser's notion that a text itself can imply that its
reader possesses certain basic literary and cultural information and
skills, termed the "repertoire". This notion of the repertoire lends some
stability to the interpretive process, allowing the critic to "construct a
model reader whose responses can be shown to be general and not
idiosyncratic, historically aware and not bound by contemporary standards
or patterns of response" (pp. 5-6). The rest of the chapter is taken up
with an outline of the basic information possessed by the implied reader
of the Satyricon.

In Part One (Ch. 2-6), S. constructs a
reader's "first reading" of the Satyricon, which is in effect a
running commentary on instances of role-playing or representation and the
resulting interpretive acts performed by the characters in the text. S.'s
remarks on the dynamics of role-playing in the Agamemnon episode (Ch. 2),
in the Quartilla episode (Ch. 3), at the Cena (Ch. 4), on the way
to
Croton (Ch. 5) and at Croton (Ch. 6) will all stimulate further
discussion,
and his argument that the views of literature and art which emerge from
the Satyricon are not to be taken as a transparent representation
of Petronius' own views (esp. pp. 117-18) is certainly valuable. I am less
convinced by S.'s argument that the Troiae halosis is to be read
simply as a failure of interpretation because it does not seem to
describe an
actual painting (pp. 95-101); is this standard really the most appropriate
criterion in a reader's repertoire for evaluating literary descriptions of
works of art? In a similar fashion, S.'s account of a reader's perplexed
response to the Bellum Civile (pp. 117-22) seems to me to minimize
the importance of Sat. 118 for our understanding of the repertoire
of a reader of the Satyricon. S. argues that the BC is
clearly not a parodic critique of Lucan, and here I am in agreement with
him. But when he maintains that
the BC therefore has no significant relation to Lucan's poem on the
Civil
War, I disagree. Lucan's decision not to represent the actions of the gods
in his poem seems to have been perceived as a distinct innovation (cf. E.
M. Sanford, "Lucan and his Roman Critics," CP 26 [1931] 233-57; and
now D.
C. Feeney, The Gods in Epic [Oxford 1991], Ch. 6). Therefore,
Sat. 118, with Eumolpus's remarks about the appropriate
representation of the gods
in epic, seems to invite a reader to read and think about the subsequent
poem on the civil war as a literary response to Lucan's treatment of the
same theme. Furthermore, when Latin literature had seen the development of
so many different ways of reacting to literary predecessors, must such a
response be seen exclusively in terms of parody or negative criticism?
These queries aside, I find S.'s engaging and comprehensive survey of
instances of role-playing within the Satyricon and the resulting
acts of
interpretation performed by internal audiences a fine introduction to
some of Petronius's most brilliant literary maneuvers.

In Part Two
(Ch 7-9), S. reconsiders the Satyricon's interpretive challenges.
This
"rereading" is an attempt to counteract the sense of "fragmentation" which
S. argues has emerged from the first reading (pp. 137-38). Where others
may attempt to transcend the fragmentation of the text by viewing the
text as primarily an epic parody, or by mapping it on to what we know of
the genre of Menippean satire, S. argues quite rightly that simply to
label the Satyricon an epic parody or a prosimetric Menippean satire
does not produce a literary interpretation of the text. Instead, S. terms
the Satyricon an instance of what Bakhtin calls heteroglossia,
which may be
defined as the capacity of the novel as a literary form to incorporate
various types of discourse, ranging from the serious and classical to the
comic and carnivalesque. It might be noted here that Bakhtin himself, in
articulating the notion of heteroglossia in novelistic discourse,
categorizes the Satyricon as a development of Menippean satire:
"The Satyricon of Petronius is good proof that Menippean satire can
expand into a huge picture, offering a realistic reflection of the
socially varied and heteroglot world of contemporary life" (The
Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, ed. M. Holquist,
trans. C. Emerson and M.
Holquist [Austin 1981], 27). This concept of heteroglossia structures S.'s
survey of various systems of representing experience in the
Satyricon: the
language of the freedmen; instances of literary "voices"; and the visual
artifacts represented in the text. From S.'s study of interpretive crises
in these various systems, a number of interesting points emerge: the
discussion of exclamat at 108.14 (pp. 171-73), the suggestion that
Petronius's representation of Eumolpus responds in some way to Horace's
vision of the bad poet at the end of the Ars poetica (pp. 192-94),
and the re-contextualization of visual artifacts against ancient theories
of aesthetic perception (Ch. 9) are particularly insightful; and the
general point that the presence of epic parody in the Satyricon
should not blind readers to other literary aspects of the work is well
taken.

In
concluding (Part Three, Ch. 10), S. argues that ultimately the
Satyricon's
preoccupation with interpretive failures supports his notion that this
text itself is impossible to interpret: "A reader's expectation of
decoding meaning through ordinary procedures of reading can be aroused
only to be frustrated. Indeed, this pattern can be repeated and
constitutes one of the primary sources of comedy in a text -- which is
precisely what I contend happens in the Satyricon" (237). Perhaps
not all
will share completely the "frustration" which S. ascribes to the
Satyricon's reader. Nevertheless, this attractively produced book,
containing translations of all Latin, thorough indices and a useful
bibliography, will complement existing treatments of the Satyricon
and will help scholars and students in Classics and in other areas bring
new energy and appreciation to future studies of the abundant interpretive
challenges posed by Petronius's literary genius.